The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework: Creating an Action Plan November 2017
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Contents AWS Cloud Adoption Framework - Action Plan Overview 1 AWS Cloud Adoption Framework and Perspectives 1 Creating an AWS CAF Action Plan 3 Conclusion 7 Appendix Action Plan Templates 8
Abstract As organizations transition to the cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers have discovered that creating an action plan for cloud adoption can help you migrate to the cloud faster, realize your desired outcomes, and avoid common challenges to a smooth migration. Creating an action plan helps you uncover potential issues with cloud adoption, then identify and implement proactive solutions. The resulting action plan documents will guide your organization s cloud adoption process.
The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework - Action Plan Overview The action plan is a key part of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF). The process of developing an action plan helps you voice challenges and concerns related to cloud adoption. Once created, the action plan aligns your organization to proactive solutions, and helps you avoid pitfalls in the transition to a cloud-based IT model. The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework and Perspectives Successful cloud transformations identify which organizational skills need to be updated and what new skills need to be learned. The AWS CAF supports and guides your organization as you create an effective cloud adoption plan to address these gaps. It provides guidance on six key perspectives common to businesses: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations. Each perspective is structured to address specific audiences and roles: Business Perspective common roles: Business Managers, Finance Managers, Budget Owners, Strategy Stakeholders People Perspective common roles: Human Resources, Staffing Managers, People Managers Governance Perspective common roles: Chief Information Officer (CIO), Program Managers, Project Managers, Enterprise Architects, Business Analysts, Portfolio Managers Platform Perspective common roles: Chief Technology Officer (CTO), IT Managers, Solution Architects Security Perspective common roles: Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), IT Security Managers, IT Security Analysts Operations Perspective common roles: IT Operations Managers, IT Support Managers For example, the Business Perspective helps Business Managers, Finance Managers, Budget Owners, and Strategy Stakeholders understand how certain aspects of their roles may be altered by cloud adoption. Page 1
The action plan you create is based on the six perspectives. Each AWS CAF perspective contains capabilities that are owned or managed by one or more functionally related stakeholders. As you review each perspective you begin to define how stakeholders in each functional area will update skills and processes to support a successful cloud adoption. This occurs in four steps: 1. Identify which stakeholders in your organization are critical to cloud adoption. 2. Understand the questions and concerns that may delay or impede cloud adoption for those stakeholders. 3. Identify skills or processes that you need to update to address those questions or concerns. 4. Create an action plan for updating the identified skills and/or processes. Page 2
Creating an AWS CAF Action Plan You create an action plan by populating action plan templates with each skill or process that needs to be updated within each perspective. Below is an example of a blank Business Perspective Action Plan. Figure 1: AWS CAF Action Plan: Business Perspective Action Plan Template For each skill or process that requires updating, you create an action statement and enter it into a cell within the template. Action statements should begin with a verb. Actions to update skills usually start with learn, investigate or train. Actions to update processes usually start with create, update, develop or reevaluate. Include an icon in each cell to identify whether the action statement is a skill or a process. Page 3
Each action plan template has six icons that represent each perspective. This helps to identify interdependencies with actions in other perspectives: Business Perspectives Technology Perspectives Business Icon Platform Icon People Icon Security Icon Governance Icon Operations Icon For example, you may have an action within the Business Perspective which has an interdependency in the Security Perspective. You denote this interdependency by including a Security Icon and brief description in the Business Perspective Action Plan. Page 4
Below is an example of a Business Perspective Action Plan. Figure 2: AWS CAF Action Plan: Example Business Perspective Action Plan The completed perspective templates, outline an action plan for related stakeholders across the entire cloud adoption journey. When rolled up to an organizational level, the combined set of actions becomes too large to effectively manage. Instead, you should review each of the perspective action plans and identify which actions you will complete in the next two weeks. Populate these first term actions into an Action Plan Summary template. Use the summary to prioritize actions at an organizational level. You may elect to repeat this process in regular cycles, throughout your cloud journey. Page 5
Here is an example of a completed Action Plan Summary: Figure 3: AWS CAF Action Plan: Completed Action Plan Summary Page 6
Conclusion The AWS CAF helps organizations identify gaps in their current organizational capabilities and develop work streams to close the gaps. AWS CAF action plans provide a roadmap for completing the required organizational change by related stakeholders. This process can help you ensure that required updates are made to your organizational capabilities in support of a successful cloud adoption journey. Page 7
Appendix Action Plan Templates Page 8
Figure 1: AWS CAF Action Plan Summary Template Page 9
Figure 2: AWS CAF Action Plan: Business Perspective Template Page 10
Figure 3: AWS CAF Action Plan: People Perspective Template Page 11
Figure 4: AWS CAF Action Plan: Governance Perspective Template Page 12
Figure 5: AWS CAF Action Plan: Platform Perspective Template Page 13
Figure 6: AWS CAF Action Plan: Security Perspective Template Page 14
Figure 7: AWS CAF Action Plan: Operations Perspective Template Page 15